“The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) has released the largest-ever three-dimensional map of massive galaxies and distant black holes, which will help astronomers explain the mysterious “dark matter” and “dark energy” that scientists know makes up 96 percent of the Universe.

Early last year, the SDSS-III released the largest-ever image of the sky. With the new release of data, SDSS-III has begun to expand this image into a full three-dimensional map. Data Release 9 (DR9), posted online last week, makes available the first third of the galaxy map that this six-year project will create”. – SDSS-III

“A video fly-through of the SDSS-III galaxies mapped in Data Release 9. Each galaxy in the animation is placed at the location mapped by SDSS and is represented by the zoomed-in template image that matches the actual shape of the galaxy.

Galaxies are concentrated into clusters and filaments with voids in between. The SDSS-III is exploring this structure to determine the nature of dark energy and the distribution of dark matter in the Universe”. – SDSS-III